PASSION FOR TINION (WIP Novel 120,000 words)
© Cupideros, October 21, 2006
CHAPTER 13: TELEGARA SIGNS UP
© Cupideros, November 11, 2006
"Look, Mom?" and TelGara turned around in the black and blue camouflage uniform that matched the blue grass and black dirt on the Eastern Quoardian front. "I agree my hips don't show as much, as I like--and I had to cut my hair" TelGara took off her cap.
"You look like a military officer, TelGara. Something regal and natural about you in that uniform." Megyra stared at her daughter in disbelief.
"You think so?" TelGara turned around again. "Because that is the plan to go as high as I can and reach the front and defend this great country!" She said with a swift salute motion following.
"Dear, just another other month," Megyra said cautiously, "You hated the war." She adjusted her daughter's hat on her head.
"Well that was before I met, Tembor."
"Who is Tembor? I'm almost afraid to ask?"
"He's the most charming and intelligent man, you've ever met. He supports the war 100%." TelGara eyes glowed like a young girl going to her prom. "He works in the hotel business. He knows a lot of important people. He's so--"
"'Romantic?' might be the word, the way you're describing him," Megyra offered."
TelGara stopped for a second. "Yeah. He's too good to be true." TelGara rushed and sat down on the couch with her mom who was playing electronic scrabble on the television. She thought about Madam Rose and the Poison Doves "Tembor hinted about the sordid business."
"He did!" Megyra stopped playing and smiled hopefully to TelGara. "And..."
"Oh, Mom, if I love him." TelGara said excitedly. "He's so smooth and all the women in the hotel he runs adore him. He gets to travel everywhere?"
"Ugggh. A gigolo."
"A what?"
"A Poison Dove. TelGara you stay away from him. He's not to be trusted."
"Hmmm. You're probably right." TelGara thought about Tembor. Yep probably, a Poison Dove catching all the women spies venturing into town.
"He's too good to be true. If he were a good match, something would be wrong with him. He'd stay out all night or be have a limp, or work late like your Dad, or ... or be a officer in the Quoardian military."
TelGara thought. "I can't think of anything wrong with Tembor."
"Her mother resumed her game. "Exactly. She made the word "commitment" now, Anorfiviel. That's a solid guy. If you're going to marry someone out of duty marry, Anorfiviel."
"I don't love, Anorfiviel, Mom." TelGara said as she made the word "military" down using the "m" in "commitment."
"Good choice, but you missed a larger word "responsibility", dear."
"Before I wasn't good with either, but now I'm committed. I'll become an officer in a year."
"What will your Dad, say?"
Thrylas walked into the door and closed it. "About what?" Then he turned, looked, and dropped his brief case. "TelGara!"
"See, Dad!" TelGara stood up and turned around. "I'm not your little girl anymore. I'm a member of the army. I signed up today, near the hotel, by the recruitment center."
"TelGara...what about Anorfiviel?"
"He'll just have to marry some other Beast Girl."
Megyra laughed.
"I'm sorry, Dad," said TelGara, but Anorfiviel is ugly and he our minds don’t match.
"Anorfiviel is a safe and stable marriage. I'll not have my daughter going off into the military!"
"Thrylas!"
"What!" said Thrylas.
"You wanted your daughter to be loyal. She decided. Leave it at that!"
"We've already lost one child to this Eternal war!" Thrylas sat on the couch. "We didn't want you to close your options simply because of us. Your brother was a fine officer in secret intelligence, in Quo Security. He's been lost on the Galan side for three years now."
Megyra said, "No word. No contact. We don't know if he's alive. But they've already given us the notification that he died in the line of duty."
TelGara was dejected and confused. "I won't go then..."
Megyra said, "No you do what you want."
"Please stay," said her Dad, quiet tears in his eyes.
"I...I can't stay. I've made a commitment. I'm obligated to follow through. I want to go and kill some Galans. I'm so pissed off at this whole war situation."
Thrylas studied his daughter, "I think you should go, since you put it that way. It's selfish of me to hold you back."
“Thrylas, if we were in Congress we'd have an exemption and TelGara wouldn’t have to sign up or endure the Forced Propagation."
"Megyra that law sickens me," Thrylas said and he went to his chair sat for a second. Then left and returned with a cup of coffee. "Those people don't understand this Eternal War because it can't impact them."
"Dear, thanks," Meygra took the steaming brew, and we have a few days left with TelGara. We might as well stay up and chat with her all we can."
***
One week later TelGara sat in a small PsyCorp Class with twenty-nine other officers. She thought this odd military training began with Army's PsyCorp.
"Welcome to PsyCorp Class I of IV," said a male moderator. He was a major and a rather small fellow in size. His hair a faded blonde and he had a pug nose. "I may seem small but my mind is large. Repeat that, please."
I may seem small but my mind is large!" the entire class said, and they laughed and looked around at each other. Wondering what for.
"You laugh. Capturing the enemy is no laughing matter for us, Quoardian in the Army. And I assure you it is not laughing matter for the Galans.
You are here to learn various interrogations and psychological techniques used by Galans to make you believe your life is hopeless, that they know everything in your mind, and that you should quickly cooperate in order to secure certain benefits like food and water. Of course, they're real purpose is to make you obligated to them. After obligated, you will suppose rules of commitment and responsibility on yourselves. The way to this end is not physical torture but mental annoyance, lots and lots of mental annoyance.
He handed out a peace of paper that had a list of fiction works and television shows and radio programs on it. The group chatter as they recognized programs. TelGara saw Romeo and Juliet on the list.
"This list seems harmless enough," he began again. "But consider how information might be used," he paused, "Against you. Let's take Romeo and Juliet for our first example. It's on the classics list. It's good literature. But what if your interrogator said to you, 'Gee those fools in love. Under stressful conditions all couples break up, misunderstand one another and abandon one another. In fact, I know a girl who thought her boyfriend loved her, and she couldn’t be sure because he never wrote her. No one you love knows you are captured. And," your interrogator smiles, "No one cares. Your Queen, your Congressman and Senator, not your Mom or Dad, not even one cares. Love is an immediate thing and those who love you provide you with practical benefits."
TelGara founds herself swimming in doubts and confusing scenarios about RaydGalil. Is he thinking these thoughts? We agreed never to die on one another. We'll not give up hope. Then she remembered how unusual was their first meeting. How she gave him a slap and knighted him as her lover. TelGara smiled.
"How many of you found yourself thinking about a loved one?"
A few raised their hands.
"Isn't it amazing the power of words to generate confusion or even depression. You'd have to employ several means to repeatedly bombard a person 24/7 in regular life for this to become effective, but as a capture prisoner, it might work surprisingly fast."
The class nodded.
"Suppose, you didn't know you were under surveillance, but the enemy had a complete list of your library card checkouts, and what foods you ate and what music you listened too and in fact knew exact which books you read for peace or strength on a regular basis? Would this information be more productive?"
The class said, "Yes, it would."
"Information is not weak and even though I'm small in stature I can make the huge man feel doubt and fear and depression if I employed this information on him daily for a year or more. If I enlist the friends of the Quo and we use commercials, print and TV advertisements but public approved, private, and secretly employed on just that one person, again I could have an impact on not only his health and mind, but his spirit as well. For you see folks, God is no where to be found in a systems like ours. We act as if God doesn’t exit. We are like God. We have enough people to be everywhere at once, or make it seem so."
TelGara thought about RaydGalil and his situation became direr. If the Galans have figured out the passages and are employing their forces against him psychologically. She'd needed to rescue him sooner.
"Or take this tact, whatever you opponent is reading, say motivational works. You say just the opposite--as lone as that opposite is depressing and harmful to the opponent." He waved for someone to stand up. A man came up to him. He was clean cut and looked like an artist in a military uniform.
"Hi young man how are you?"
"Fine?"
"Today is a terrible day. I feel like that old picture called the "Screamer."
The man said excitedly, "I remember the picture, I'm an artist."
"Then you know, how badly the originator of the painting ended up. Insane I think it was."
"No, it wasn't--"
"That's right he just died painfully of tuburcluous. In fact, he died penniless. He had heart pains, back pains. Such sensitive people as artist cannot endure that type of pain. Artists think the sun is shinning, but it rains just as often, if not more so. In fact, I don't like the colors; they all seem like one dull grey to me. Don't you agree?"
The artist stood there for a second dumbfounded.
"See. The mind has to consider every negative thing I've said. Since I've attached it to something he finds dear the influence is extra potent."
The class nodded in silence.
"The purpose of this information is not to scare you, but to let you know your enemies will use any method that is invisible. No marks on the body, but marks on the mind. If you know these techniques, you can resist them. And we will show you how." He stopped a passed out a black notebook with various psychological techniques inside.
"Read over this manual. When we return next Thursday, you'll be stronger and less likely to be subject to manipulation." He paused when he heard the snickers from the guys. "There is a last section called "You Whore!"
The guys laughed the women were offended and serous.
"The Galan consider it a great insult to our women soldiers to call them a "Whore." That ancient word has been eliminated from our culture with the equality in Quo and everywhere else. However, the Galan's employ it to insult and break down their women prisoners. In fact, they considered our "Forced Propagation" as a brothel program."
TelGara glances across a couple aisles at another woman who turned to her. They both agreed. The "Force Propagation" was much a whore program, since women wanted to marry for love anyway.
"It is the highest insult a woman of Quoardian descent can receive. To combat its rampant use among the Galans, we've made this insult one of the severest penalties. Subject to interrogation in our prisons. We're sending a strong message to the Galans, that our women are no "Whores!"
The class erupted with claps.
"See you next Thursday."
"Do you believe that. A word practically eliminated and here in the military we're faced with it again," said the woman who turned to TelGara before.
"I know. It's embarrassing to deal with it after all these years," said TelGara.
end chapter 13
